Wash Your Hands, People.

Even before the corona virus reared its ugly, crown-shaped head, I wasn’t planning a cruise to Alaska or Cozumel this year. I’ve partaken of the cruise ship experience once in my life, and it just wasn’t for me. The boarding process felt like an endless cafeteria line, as thousands of people waited in cattle chutes to board the ship, moving an inch a minute. The smorgasbords were extravagant and the nightly towel-animal creations were fun to anticipate, but for me, it was too much. I was overwhelmed by the lavish display, but I was also a bit freaked out by the idea of being unable to get off the ship should I choose to do so. Remember the Titanic?

On that cruise ship, I felt like Charlie on the MTA, who came to fame in a song recorded by the Kingston Trio in 1959. Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes wrote this classic as a campaign song for Boston’s progressive mayoral candidate Walter O’Brien. When the fare got raised on the subway, Charlie didn’t have enough money to pay the exit fare so he could “get off of that train.” “Poor old Charlie” was forever labeled as “the man who never returned,” riding forever beneath the streets of Boston as his wife handed him his lunch at quarter past two each day. 

The MTA song was based on an older tune, “The Ship that Never Returned,” which leads us back to the corona virus. Teresa Hanifin’s report from the Boston Globe sent shivers down my back: “The fate of 2500 people headed back to the US remains a mystery as their cruise ship won’t be allowed to dock in San Francisco for the foreseeable future. That’s because the Grand Princess cruise ship previously carried a passenger who just became the first person to die from coronavirus in California.” Officials were finally able to sort out a plan for the passengers, but for a while, they must have felt like Charlie on the MTA, or extras in a horror movie. 

This pandemic of coronavirus has shaken the world, as evidenced by the stock market difficulties, new travel bans, the shortages of masks, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper (?) and the cancellation of face to face college classes and even NBA games, where thousands of people gather in close proximity. We’re washing our hands to a new song each day (but not Baby Shark), and we’re coughing into our elbows. Some churches have even traded the handshake of peace for an elbow bump or Star Trek’s Vulcan salute.

How bad is it? Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases tells us this: “I can say we will see more cases and things will get worse than they are right now . . . Bottom line, it’s going to get worse.”

But how much worse? Is the reaction to COVID-19 overblown? Numbers paint one picture. As of Thursday, the death toll in the US from the coronavirus stands at 38. In contrast, the death toll from gun violence in a typical year in the US is 36,000+, while in 2017, more than 70,000 people died as a result of drug overdose. Since 1981, HIV/AIDS has killed 36 million people worldwide. But Dr. Fauci’s testimony to congress speaks of what we don’t know. “It’s going to get worse,” but we don’t know the extent of ‘worse.’

So yes, wash your hands, people. Don’t touch your face (easier said than done). Protect the vulnerable among us. Follow appropriate medical advice. Pay attention, but don’t “fweak out,” as the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday reminds us often.

And, while I risk sounding like a broken record, choose kindness. We’re human, and when we’re bewildered and afraid, all too often our default setting is to cast blame. Kindness can be the perfect antidote. 

Kay Bruner reflects on these days: “There’s a lot of uncertainty [in the world]. And a lot of certainty that is really scary. I still don’t have a better answer than ‘Whatever happens, we will get through it together.’ That’s the one certain thing.” Sounds like a plan to me.